Water Cycle Fundamentals
The continuous movement of water on, above, and below Earth's surface.
What is the water cycle?
Liquid water stored in soil and rock formations beneath Earth's surface.
What is groundwater?
Rain, snow, and sleet are examples of this stage, whereas erosion is not.
What is precipitation?
The Earth system that includes liquid water bodies such as oceans, lakes, and rivers.
What is the hydrosphere?
In a classroom investigation setup using a jar, plastic wrap, and a lamp, the lamp represents this real-world energy source.
What is the Sun?
Unlike a journey with a set starting point and finish line, this statement accurately describes the starting or ending point of the water cycle.
What is that it has no beginning or end?
In the water cycle, this form of liquid water moves underground slowly toward the ocean.
What is groundwater?
Clouds form in the atmosphere when invisible water vapor cools and undergoes this process.
What is condensation?
Water vapor evaporating from living plant leaves into the air shows an interaction between these two Earth systems.
What are the biosphere and the atmosphere?
n a classroom investigation setup using a jar, plastic wrap, and a lamp, plastic wrap secured over the top of the container represents this layer of Earth.
What is the atmosphere?
The primary energy source that heats surface water and drives the water cycle.
What is the Sun?
The natural force that propels surface runoff and groundwater downhill toward lakes and oceans.
What is gravity?
As water vapor in the upper atmosphere cools, it condenses into liquid droplets or ice crystals to form these.
What are clouds?
Liquid water evaporating from an ocean into the sky is moving from the hydrosphere into this system.
What is the atmosphere?
The water inside the glass jar in a desktop investigation represents this natural body of water on Earth.
What is a lake (or ocean/surface water)?
The process in which liquid water turns into gas water vapor and enters the atmosphere.
What is evaporation?
To accurately represent surface runoff on a diagram, an arrow should be drawn showing water moving from mountains toward this destination.
What is a lake (or body of water)?
Large frozen freshwater reservoirs on land, store water until it melts into runoff or undergoes this cycle.
What is storage in glaciers, ice, glaciers, and snow?
The total number of Earth systems involved in cycling water across Earth.
What is four?
Water droplets forming on the underside of the plastic wrap in a model jar demonstrate this process.
What is condensation?
The three main sequential processes a single drop of water routinely passes through in the water cycle.
What are evaporation, condensation, and precipitation?
Rainwater that seeps down into cracks in the soil and rock enters this specific Earth system.
What is the geosphere?
Over time, the two possible destinations for water sitting in a street puddle on a warm day.
What is evaporating into the atmosphere or seeping into the ground as groundwater?
According to NGSS performance expectation MS-ESS2-4, the water cycle is driven by energy from the Sun and this fundamental force.
What is gravity?
Heavy water droplets falling back down into the jar from the plastic wrap model this process in nature.
What is precipitation (or rain)?